Arthur wrote: > Following my experiences in early December, I hurriedly tried to get a > replacement glow plug (seven flashes on the panel) prompting me. > > After failing to purchase a spare from my nearest Bosch listed stockist > (which has apparently been a Chinese Takeaway for the last four years). To get a > spare in time for the Christmas Cruise (which we weren't able to make because > of family illness) I ordered one through a friend who is a garage owner â" the > cost of this part turned out to be £10 more than ex Mikuney (chuckles > regarding yet another example of my non-money saving purchasing strategy from his > former worship), the guy showed my the invoice from his supplier, so he wasn't > ripping me off.
He wasn't ripping you off, he had been ripped off. Bosch agents will get Bosch parts at the agent's price and other garages should get parts at trade price. Both of which should be less than the Mikuni price. That's a fact, I'm afraid, Arthur. > > Anyway, I was at last able to get to the boat yesterday, and then following > Julian's excellent instructions I was able to remove the old glow plug, do a > continuity test (which indicated no fault) clean the air holes in the plug > boss reinsert the old glowplug and fire up the central heating and have lunch in > less time (including the 65 mile journey to the boat) in less time than it > took me to go nine miles on the previous aborted attempt to go boating last > Thursday. > > Thanks Julian and Roger for your help and advice, I now know what to do when > the glow plug eventually fails, and I now have a spare, which I needed > anyway. The ignition fails because the windings are shorted by the carbon build up which, in turn, causes the fire-up amperage to exceed the supply fuse rating. A (new) plug will have a relatively low resistance anyway, so it would be difficult to view any reduction caused by inter-turn carbon shorting on any normal type ohm meter. The carbon build up on the lowest side of the plug windings is caused by your aforementioned blocked swirl holes. If you got away with just cleaning the swirl holes then you were lucky but, I'll bet, that you plug is still drawing more amps than it should but just below the fusible limit. I've got amp figures for good and duff plugs written down but they're on Albion and not accessible at the moment. If you want to prevent a recurrence of this problem then check and clear the swirl holes regularly while running on red diesel. When we are forced to use white I don't believe that there will be so much of a problem. Roger
